Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994 TAG: 9404120026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
According to the mall managers, their decision was influenced by shoppers who raised concerns, and by the increasing evidence that secondhand smoke in a closed environment is dangerous to nonsmokers, especially children and pregnant women.
A credit to the mall managements, their announcement reflects a healthy trend that has seen shopping centers across the country ban smoking, except in designated areas of restaurants.
The larger trend, of course, is a powerful new offensive against smoking engaged on several fronts - from proposed higher cigarette taxes for funding health-care reform, to the U.S. surgeon general's campaign against cigarette ads allegedly aimed at children; from businesses and governments declaring their workplaces smoke-free (or providing special places for smoking), to the Food and Drug Administration's probe into the tobacco industry's manipulation of nicotine levels in cigarettes.
Of particular relevance to the shopping malls' decision is a major Environmental Protection Agency report, released last year, which concluded that environmental tobacco smoke can cause lung cancer in nonsmokers. Passive smoke also causes hundreds of thousands of bronchitis and pneumonia cases in children, and induces or aggravates asthma in up to one million young Americans.
Some of the strongest evidence for the EPA's findings came from "spouse studies," which examine the health of nonsmoking women married to smokers. Overwhelmingly, the research indicates such women are at an increased risk of contracting lung cancer.
The evidence is even stronger where children are concerned. Kids of smokers, according to several studies, have higher rates of illness and school absenteeism. Parental smoking, for example, apparently causes most middle-ear infections in children, which can require hospitalization or even surgery.
To be sure, the health impact is related to dose. Shopping malls are not the most dangerous places in terms of exposure to secondhand smoke. Homes are. When assigning custody in divorce settlements, some judges have started to take parental smoking habits into account. But, for the most part, and usually for good reasons, society is more hesitant to intervene inside the home.
This is not to say, however, that work places, schools, cars, child care centers or any other sites are not potentially dangerous. Certainly, if people spend years in smoke-filled environments, they are at risk. And if public places such as shopping malls carry smoke in the air, there is at least some danger.
Look at it this way: The levels of secondhand smoke in a mall that permits smoking far exceed the legally tolerated levels of other known human carcinogens, such as asbestos.
Managers of the four malls said they made and announced their decision jointly because they feared that if one banned smoking unilaterally, it might lose customers to the others. But it's hard to imagine (even a slightly) increased risk of lung cancer being much of a draw for nonsmokers.
As for smokers - and kids seduced by the lure and look of smoking - a little inconvenience and even stigma might help prolong life, of which some portion is taken up visiting shopping malls.
by CNB